Monday, July 13, 2009

Day 20 - hiding out in my sister's house

So we have finally reentered the 21 century, air conditioning, high speed internet, and grocery stores with gluten free offerings! Yeah!!

We are at my sister's house now... we arrived on Saturday evening, after a drive down from VA and dinner with my sister-in-law, who begged a ride back from the Stumps. This would be my sister--in-law Jeanne, who had the open heart surgery a few months ago. She is healing very well and is looking forward to getting some strength back.

The kids had such a good time hanging with the Cousins in VA. The ones who were there are 9, 11 and 13, and live near Fort Lauderdale. We have not seen them for a year, so they were all excited to get together at Granny and Papa's and many forts were built, apples gathered and fire flies captured in a blissful week in The Stumps.

We also took a nice walk along an old rail bed converted to a hiking trail to the Shot Tower, which was used during the 1800's to make lead shot for muzzle loading shotguns and muskets. It is a real engineering feat, if you ask me...the tower is 75 tall (built in a time and place without any kind of big construction equipment) and there is a shaft into the ground that is also 75 feet deep, plus a tunnel out to the river. They would pour the molten lead out at the top of the shaft, it would form into balls and when it reached the river water at the bottom of the shaft, the shot would chill and set. Very amazing to think that all this happened 200 plus years ago!

We also celebrated Pineapple's 4th birthday! He was so funny, when he realized that he was finally four, he ran around to everyone in the house (there were 15 misc aunts, uncles, cousins siblings and grandparents), telling them all "I am four now!". He got to pick his dinner, cake and ice cream, so we dined on pizza, carrots and cucumbers, "tolkit take with tolkit tip frosting and tolkit tip ice tream". So fun to celebrate a birthday with extended family!!

A look inside:

On Living the Dream...
Since I was a kid, it has always been my dream to be a stay at home mom with lots of kids. When I was older and learned about homeschooling, I added that to my list as well. Fast forward a whole lot of years and I am finally "living my dream"! We had been married for 18 years when we adopted our first two kids and added the third a year later.
Things were rough at first, and I often asked myself if this is what I had really wanted. But God has been faithful and blessed me beyond measure! Now we have three kids, 7-11, and yes, we will welcome more (when God sees fit to bring them to us).
Things still get crazy around here, but I just try and picture Christ, sleeping in that boat amidst the storm. And I now make it a priority to spend time with Him every morning. My day just goes so much more smoothly!!
t